Home Sweet Home

  Memorial Day A couple months ago I told Justin that we should take our kids and both sets of grandparents to the Mesa City Cemetery and tell our kids stories about our family members buried there. I thought it would make a good Sunday or Family Home Evening activity.  I want my children to identify with their ancestors and feel like they can learn from them. I especially want them to feel like they can develop some of the same good qualities or avoid some of the poor ones. They had also never been to a cemetery so it would be a new experience for them. Justin and I never got around to organizing it until today. Justin's mom was planning a lunch BBQ and swimming for Memorial Day and told me she was thinking of inviting my parents and asked about time preferences since she was thinking of doing it around dinner time. The idea of the cemetery popped into my head and I mentioned that I thought it would be neat to do the BBQ earlier in the day and then take everyone out to the...

Just like old times . . . After traveling to Utah a month ago and reuniting with David Ray and crashing on his couch we planned to have a get together once he made it down to Arizona. He, along with a few other friends that managed to come over, went to high school with me and together we were part of the coolest group of guys at Chandler High. David Van Allen and I called David Ray the day before we left to UT and h e offered to let us crash at his house on our way to a funeral in Ogden. David waited up for David Van Allen (hereinafter referred to as DVA) and I until after midnight then left at 5:00 AM the next morning for work. After chatting with us he woke his wife Shannon up to explain that two strangers were in their house and one was armed, but not to be alarmed because they were "good guys". DVA and I met Shannon the next morning and introduced ourselves. DVA, Kristi and Cliff Tolman, Clint Overton It took a bit of planning but DVA and his family came over about 1...

 Forgot to Mention...   B righton has finally lost both of his front teeth! I really wasn't looking forward to having him lose his cute baby teeth, but once they became loose and crooked and moving around all over the place, I couldn't wait for them to fall out. I remember as a kid being obsessed with my loose teeth and pulling, wiggling, and twisting them until they came out. Not the case with Brighton. This kid lets the teeth dangle until they stick out over his bottom lip like Nanny McPhee. It is so gross! One of his front teeth was so loose that sometimes he would hurt himself while eating because he would close his teeth to chew and accidentally push his front tooth behind his bottom teeth and it would "hurt". Brighton does NOT have high pain tolerance. I would barely try to wiggle his teeth (when he would let me touch them) and he would wince and swat my hands away. He honestly left his loose teeth in his mouth for weeks longer than they should have been. Th...

Father's and Sons By Justin Brighton and I went camping on the Mogollon Rim for the Fathers and Sons campout. It snowed that day but by the time we got up there that evening most of the snow had melted off. It was chilly and it drizzled starting about 8 PM and into the night. It froze at night and many of us didn't sleep too well. Brighton and I slept OK. We both were cold and woke up several times but were able to go back to sleep. By 6 o'clock we were up and working on the fire again. It was a constant effort because all of the wood was wet. I wished someone hadn't misinformed me that fires were forbidden because I could have easily brought some wood from home. Oh well. I hear the bishop spent most of the night in his truck. And many others fared much worse. I helped with the Elder's Quorum breakfast and Brighton had some alone time with other boys eating and playing in the fire. The only casualty was a small ball he got from a Sonic Kids Meal. For ...